The veeena has many regional designs have different names such as the Rudra veena, the Saraswati veena, the Mohan veena and others. The North Indian design, that has been used in classical Hindustani music, is a stick zither, About 3.5 to 4 feet long to fit the measurements of the musician, it has a hollow body and two large resonating gourds under each end. It has four main strings which are melody type, and three auxiliary drone strings. To play, the musician plucks the melody strings downward with a plectrum worn on the first and second fingers, while the drone strings are strummed with the little finger of the playing hand. The South Indian veena design, used in classical Carnatic music, is a lute. It is a long-necked, pear-shaped lute, but instead of the lower gourd of the north Indian design it has a pear shaped wooden piece. It too, however, has 24 frets, four melody strings, three drone strings, and played quite similar. It remains an important and popular string instrument in classical Carnatic music.